Family Announcements, Russell Harty - Funeral Directors and services - Family Announcements Announcements Originally printed on June 8, 1988 in the Family Announcements. Viewed by 2888 Visitors. Few television personalities were as ever-present on British television screens in the 1970s and ’80s as Russell Harty who died on 8 June, 1988, aged 53. During a broadcasting career cut tragically short, Mr Harty interviewed celebrities from all walks of public life and his relaxed and neighbourly style elicited some infamous responses. Pop diva Grace Jones slapped him for turning to another guest and Boy George famously confessed to preferring a nice cup of tea to sex. Mr Harty’sdistinctive delivery and flat, Northern vowels made him a target for impressionistswho often picked up onhis trademarkphrase – “you are, are you not?”.Frederic Russell Harty was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, on 5 September, 1934 – his family were hard-working and successful greengrocers.

He was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Blackburn before going to Exeter College, Oxford, where he read English – one of his contemporaries at Oxford was playwright, Alan Bennett, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating he worked as an English and drama teacher at Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire where one of his pupils was Richard Whiteley who later became the hugely successful presenter of the quiz show Countdown. In 1967 he became a producer with the BBC Third programme making arts and books programmes. In 1969 he moved to London Weekend Television where he presented the Saturday night arts series Aquarius with some success – his bizarre interview with Salvador Dali is widely regarded as a television classic. In 1972 he was given his own series, Russell Harty Plus, on ITV during which he conducted in-depth celebrity interviews – he won a Pye award for the outstanding new personality of the year. The series continued until 1981 and Mr Harty moved to the BBC in 1983 where he hosted an early evening talk show which ran until 1985.

He began making Russell Harty’s Grand Tour for the BBC in 1987 and at the same time was presenting Start the Week on BBC radio and writing a weekly column for The Sunday Times. Mr Harty never hid his homosexuality and had been in a stable and happy relationship with novelist Jamie O’Neill since 1982. His heavyworkload left him exhausted when hepatitis struck. Mr Harty was adored by the public and by his wide circle of loyal friends who cherished his outrageous and self-deprecatory humour. As his friend Alan Bates said: “One laughed more helplessly with him than anyone else I know.” Share your memories admin | Richard Whiteley Theatre Richard Whiteley Theatre by admin The Richard Whiteley Theatre is an exciting venture in the heart of Giggleswick School and the local community. Innovative use of an exisiting historic space has created a multi-purpose theatre and arts venue where you can find top quality drama, music, visual art, dance, film and exhibitions which complement and increase the variety of performing arts already available in the area. Giggleswick School has championed performing arts for many years, long before Richard Whiteley was a pupil here or Russell Harty his inspirational English teacher.

However, it was while they were both at the school that a space was created to stage public performance, and the Richard Whiteley Theatre takes this on to another level. The School has a strong reputation for drama and music. In 2009 a group of pupils formed a company called With Wings to take part in the Sunday Times National Student Drama Festival where they performed Sad Since Tuesday. In 2012 they came back together to secure a place at the International Student Drama Festival with a take on Shakespeares ‘Tempest’ called ‘If Room Enough’. Winning awards and acolades at ISDF, ‘If Room Enough’ will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013. We look forward to seeing you soon at the Richard Whiteley theatre, whether it be to a visiting theatre company, a school drama or music production, film or exhibition. The RWTheatre Team!

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Obituary: Richard Whiteley Obituary: Richard Whiteley Richard Whiteley: Charming, laid-back broadcaster Richard Whiteley, who has died aged 61, endeared himself to millions of television viewers as the avuncular host of Countdown, the cult word game show whose fans include the Queen. A veteran TV journalist, he was once savaged, live and on-air, by a ferret. The first programme to be shown on Channel 4 when it launched in November 1982, Countdown outlasted every one of the station's other programmes, bar the news. The 45-minute show was only meant to have a limited shelf life, but 23 years later it is still going strong. Its genial, punning and bumbling host is believed to have clocked-up more hours on television screens - and more than 10,000 appearances - than anyone else alive, apart from the girl on the test card.

She's got two consonants and a vowel, I've got two vowels and a consonant, but vowels are more useful Richard Whiteley, speaking about Carol Vorderman Born in December 1943 in Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a mill-owner, Whiteley was educated at Giggleswick public school, where he was taught English by another celebrity, Russell Harty. "With Russell, lessons were a theatrical performance and he was a wonderful teacher," Whiteley recalled. Setting his sights on a career in television, Whiteley took, as he later admitted, "a crappy Third" in English at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he also edited Varsity, the university newspaper. In 1965 he was recruited into the ITN graduate scheme, joining Yorkshire Television (YTV) as a news reporter. He later became anchorman on the early evening regional news magazine programme, Calendar. He was present on the show's opening night in 1968, a TV disaster of legendary proportions.

Recorded in advance, so cast and crew could watch it at a swanky party in Leeds, the programme was a shambles, one highlight being Whiteley's piece to camera, which was broadcast in negative, showing him with a black face and white hair. Masterful influence: Russell Harty taught Richard Whiteley English But there were notable triumphs, too. A polished and incisive political reporter with a good nose for a scoop, Whiteley was the first journalist to interview the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, after the Brighton bombing in 1984. However, all of this paled into insignificance beside a 1977 Calendar appearance alongside a ferret. Unconvinced by Whiteley's charms, the beast sunk its needle-like teeth into his finger and held him there, in increasing agony, until being prised off by its owner. Such was the popularity of Whiteley's televisual calvary that it became a ubiquitous fixture in out-take shows around the world. But it was Countdown - originally Calendar Countdown - first broadcast on YTV in the summer of 1982, that turned Whiteley from a regionally-known figure into a household name.

The show was originally screened in France, where it was called Des Chiffres et Des Lettres, and it was brought to the UK by a YTV producer who had seen it during a visit to the country. Natty dresser The simple, yet compelling, nature of the game, in which contestants attempt to make words out of nine random vowels or consonants and solve number puzzles, proved an instant hit among early evening viewers, who ranged from pensioners to university students. Whiteley's glamorous co-star, Carol Vorderman, wowed audiences with her mathematical skills and eventually became a celebrity in her own right. Dictionary Corner featured luminaries from Gyles Brandreth and Richard Stilgoe to Joan Bakewell and Jo Brand. Head for figures: Countdown gave Carol Vorderman her big break But it was Whiteley, resplendent in one of his 200-odd vivid jackets or 500-plus loud ties, who held it all together. Self-deprecating, with an outrageous ability to make a pun out of almost nothing, he was a relaxed alternative to the driven characters who usually preside over such fare.

Countdown's many fans, who included the Queen and Hollywood star George Clooney, could be obsessive in their passion for what Whiteley once proudly called a "low-tech parlour game". And in 2002 one of the show's fans was cremated to the strains of the 30-second version of the Countdown signature tune that accompanies the daily "conundrum" round. Whiteley had been married, briefly, during the 1960s. More recently, his long-term girlfriend was Kathryn Apanowicz, the radio presenter and actress who played Dirty Den's mistress, Mags, in EastEnders. But the man nicknamed Twice Nightly Whiteley - not for his amatory skills but because he often appeared on both Countdown and Calendar on the same day - was revealed in the tabloids to have had a number of other girlfriends, including one with whom he had a son during the 1980s. In June 2004, Whiteley was honoured by the Queen with an OBE.

Vorderman had received an MBE four years earlier and Whiteley joked: "She's got two consonants and a vowel, I've got two vowels and a consonant, but vowels are more useful." Frederick Russell Harty, St Alkelda’s Churchyard, Giggleswick, N Yorks, UK - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com Home > Categories > Category > Waymark you are not logged in. [log in] Frederick Russell Harty, St Alkelda’s Churchyard, Giggleswick, N Yorks, UK - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com Welcome to Waymarking.com! We hope you've been able to find what you are looking for. We would also like to encourage you to take some time to browse some of the other aspects of our site. We recommend viewing our featured waymarks , or perhaps the newest waymarks . You can also create a free membership to track your progress online and share your locations with others.

Click here to view the complete waymark directory N 54° 04.391 W 002° 17.356 30U E 546506 N 5991897 Quick Description: The grave of the well known British TV presenter, Russell Harty Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom Date Posted: 9/6/2010 6:37:39 AM Waymark Code: WM9MWR .KML File (Google Earth) Long Description: Russell Harty was born in Blackburn in 1934. He attended Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School and went on to gain a 1st class degree in English Literature from Exeter College, Oxford. Harty’s early career was an English and drama teacher at Giggleswick school, where he tutored the future TV presenter Richard Whiteley. During the 1960’s his career moved towards broadcasting when he became a radio producer for the BBC Third Programme. Harty’s first TV break came in 1970 when he presented the arts programme Aquarius for London Weekend Television.

By 1973 he moved on to being a chat show host on ITV with his own series “Russell Harty Plus”. Russell Harty became a rival to Michael Parkinson in the growth of the chat show in the UK. In 1981 Harty moved to the BBC to present an early evening chat show. The show gained some notoriety when Grace Jones slapped Harty in the face for allegedly turning his back on her. His career was on the up when he started work on a series entitled “Russell Harty’s Grand Tour” in 1987. Unfortunately, a few episodes into the series Russell Harty contracted hepatitis B and died in Leeds in June 1988. Description: Foremost TV presenter of the 1970s and 1980s Date of birth: 9/5/1934 | Russell Harty ITV gave Russell his own chat show in 1973 called ‘Russell Harty Plus’ and put him up against the legendary ‘Parkinson’ on the BBC. He was to conduct lengthy celebrity interviews from all areas of public life, some of which have become part of TV legend.

His relaxed and unique style contributed to some memorable responses. His Northern accent and his distinctive delivery was a godsend to the famous impressionists of the time with particularly Mike Yarwood who picked up on Russell’s catchphrase ‘You are, are you not?’ He also won a Pye Award for Outstanding New Personality of the Year. One of his notorious interviews was his 1973 interview with the rock band The Who, parts of which were included in the 1979 film ‘The Kids Are Alright’ where Pete Townshend & Keith Moon rip off each other’s shirts. Russell recalled the interview in 1988 ‘"I used to believe that unless you had each question written on a clipboard, and unless you followed a rigorous sequence of inquiry, all would not be well. My clipboard was an anchor and I had full need of it. The Who blasted their way through the opening number, and then came to sit down and around. Question 1 (and I blush even as I write): 'When did you first come together to form the group?' Question 2: 'Who writes the words and who the music?' Question 3: 'Are you big in America?' and so on.

I hope you will spare me the embarrassment of rehearsing the fretful litany. The Who were clearly thinking to themselves that there must be better ways of spending an evening. So they did what any high spirited, rich, young band would do. They tried to make it more interesting. They ripped off each other's designed shirts and shredded them in front of a delighted audience. Droning on in the background was this still small voice: Question 10: 'What are your plans for the future?' Their plans were to liven things up a little. When they had reduced each other to bare essentials and high laughter, they turned their attention to me, pulled me to the floor and started to divest me of my chaste Jaeger. The clock, which is often an enemy, developed a friendly aspect and put a timely stop to this madness. Time also put a stop to The Who. Keith Moon died. Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend were encouraged to explore other paths to salvation, via entertainment. I learnt two things - The first was to jettison the clipboard if the ship appeared to be sinking. Such an object lacks buoyancy.

The second was that if your body should become a battleground, it is better to lie back and pretend to enjoy it. You may lose the sympathy vote, but you might get a new suit from it." When ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ the classic Edwardian TV Series ended on 21st December 1975 Russell visited the set to present a one-off special of the show which aired on Boxing Day 1975. Regular cast members such as Jean Marsh, Gordon Jackson and Lesley Anne Down appeared along with Simon Williams and Gareth Hunt. On 17th December 1980 Russell was ‘captured’ on the This Is Your Life show by Eamon Andrews, guests who appeared included Lewis Collins and John Conteh.

On Saturday 21st March 1981 Russell appeared on the classic BBC radio show ‘Desert Island Discs’ where his choices were 1) Overture from Henry V Suite by Sir William Walton 2) When I’m Cleaning Windows by George Formby 3) Villianelle from Les nuits d’ete by Hector Berlioz 4) In the Bleak Midwinter by King’s College Chapel Choir 5) Dance with Mandolins from Romeo & Juliet by Sergi Sergeyevich Prokofiev 6) My Way by Paul Phoenix 7) If You Were The Only Girl In The World by Violet Loraine & George Robey 8) The National Anthem by the Cambridge University Musical Society The book he chose was ‘A History of Craven’ by E.T. Whittaker and his luxury item was a flagpole and Union Jack. The ‘Russell Harty Plus’ show lasted until 1981 when he moved to the BBC.

The new BBC show, titled ‘Harty’, was an early evening celebrity chat show and it was here in 1981 that Russell received his infamous ‘slap’ in the face by American singer and actress Grace Jones, who took offence because Russell supposedly turned his back to her to talk to his other guest. Russell developed a style of always on sitting in-between his guests rather than sitting in the traditional position of side on to his guests as say Michael Parkinson would do, so Russell was not ignoring her at all. Grace recalled the interview “I have no regrets. He was misbehaving, which is why I thumped him. We had a rehearsal of the show but when we got on air, Russell completely changed it and turned his back on me. I fumed: "Why have I flown in all this way from America just to be ignored? I'm not having this." So I thumped him. I didn't feel bad - I actually wanted to hit him even more.

My only regret is that I should have just rolled his chair back and tipped him over on to the floor.'” Boy George from the 80’s pop band Culture Club also created a stir by claiming he preferred a cup of tea to sex whilst being interviewed by Russell. The show ended in 1985. Whilst continuing with the chat show, he also continued to make documentaries for the BBC. One, called ‘Favourite Things’, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher revealed that one of her favourite snacks was a poached egg on Bovril toast. In 1987 he was presenting ‘Start the Week’ on BBC Radio and writing a weekly column for the Sunday Times. He also began working on a new show for the BBC ‘Russell Harty’s Grand Tour’ but he only completed a few interviews, most notably with Salvador Dali and Dirk Bogarde when he fell ill. It was to be his last television work. He never hid his homosexuality and was in a stable relationship with Jamie O’Neill, from 1982 until his death in 1988.

They met in London and Russell encouraged Jamie to write, not only reading his manuscripts but secretly sending them to publishers, which eventually led to him securing a book deal with Weidenfeld Publishers. After Russell’s death Jamie won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction and the Lambda Literary Award for his book ‘At Swim, Two Boys’. It has since been performed on the theatre. Alan Bennett, the playwright, talks about Russell and his family in ‘Untold Stories’ his semi-biography in the episode ‘Written on the Body’. Russell died from Hepatitis B on 8th June 1988, aged 53, in a Leeds hospital and was buried in the churchyard of St Alelda, Giggleswick. “It’ll only go on for another six minutes!” – A tribute to Russell Harty – TV Cream Comments With BBC4 showing an episode of THE RUSSELL HARTY SHOW on Tuesday 20 March, and then ITV1 screening The Unforgettable… Russell Harty on Wednesday, we’re declaring next week A HARTY PARTY!

It’s been 24 years since Russ passed away, and until this Russ scheduling stampede, it had seemed as if everyone had forgotten about him, apart from that bit where Grace Jones smacked him about the head a bit. And that’s a real shame, because Russell Harty was a man who produced some of the most entertaining, amusing and, you would have to say, demented television ever made. He always seemed to give over the impression that he had no idea why he’d suddenly found himself on television but since he was here he may as well have a go at it, and his camp bemusement was a familiar sight on our screens throughout the 1970s and 1980s. So let’s remember the TV icon that was Mister Rissole Hartley… In the beginning Russ was born in Blackburn, and one of his most famous encounters was with the Mayor of his home town, who informed him, “You may be big in London, but you’re bugger all in Blackburn!”. His first proper job was as English teacher at Giggleswick School in Yorkshire, where one of his pupils was a young Richard Whiteley.

Twice Nightly later said that Russell was his hero while he was in school, because he seemed so cool and intelligent, taking Richard to see CAMBRIDGE CIRCUS and then inviting him for dinner with his mate Alan Bennett. Although Richard thought he was a great teacher, his ambitions always lay in the media, with his first ever telly appearance coming in an appearance on CRISS CROSS QUIZ in 1958. However it took him a while to make it back on screen. Whiteley next met him in the mid-sixties when both ended up as neighbours in Notting Hill, with Richard working as a sub-editor at ITN and Russ producing shows for Radio Four, and Russ was apparently most disturbed to learn that Rich was earning far more money than he was. No wonder he decided to make the move to television, joining the new LWT to produce arts show AQUARIUS. It wasn’t long before Russ was in front of, as well as behind, the camera, presenting as well as producing the show.

His camp and arch manner helped him stand out, while already he was enjoying something of a reputation as a man as interested in so-called downmarket pop culture as he was in the high arts, notably bringing Gracie Fields and Sir William Walton together at last. He then graduated to hosting his own chat show, initially called ELEVEN PLUS – possibly in a nod to his previous career – and then RUSSELL HARTY PLUS . The most memorable moment from this series was a demented interview with The Who, who clearly terrified Russ, especially when Keith Moon elected to strip off down to his pants. Nevertheless Russ was happy to interview absolutely anyone, to some success, and next time he met up with his protege Whiteley, he was thrilled to find that he was now earning at least four times as much as Richard. Russ was also all for uncovering new talent and giving them a big break. Our favourite, from 1974: “Tonight, in the nature of an experiment we’re going to give someone such a break…” One of the most remarkable shows of Russell’s time was a Christmas special in 1975 to mark the final episode of UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS .

After opening with an outrageously pompous monologue to camera (“There’s scant Christmas cheer here, good friends…”), Russ then proceeded to spend the first half of the programme exchanging stiff pleasantries with the “upstairs” characters sipping drinks in the morning room and cooing, “Pray, what future for Master Richard Bellamy?”. He then moved below stairs for part two to appear alternately flummoxed at being addressed repeatedly as “Rissole Hartley” and bemused by Gordon Jackson’s knowledge of etiquette. Nobody knew whether they were supposed to be in character or not, Russ repeatedly asking “And what about you… the real you?”, and the whole thing was topped off by the final few moments, when the action suddenly switched to a TV set, and the camera pulled back to find Russ sat in the studio watching it, turning to camera and announcing, “London Weekend will be repeating 26 specially selected episodes of Upstairs Downstairs in the New Year!” At the end of the decade, however, Russ got a bit pissed off with life at LWT, not helped by his final job, hosting SATURDAY NIGHT PEOPLE.

After spending most of the decade as the sole host of a show with his name in the title, Russ considered it a massive demotion to become a co-host alongside Janet Street-Porter and Clive James. Ostensibly a “gossip column of the air”, with our trio of hosts bitching about famous people, the best rumours all came about backstage, when it was revealed that all three – each hosting from behind their own individual hexagonal desk – demanded the camera to be in a certain position to get their best side, while Russ was pissed off with Clive never learning his lines and Janet was pissed off with Russ always interrupting her. This massive clash of egos rages for one series before Russ decided the time was right to move on, and defected to the Beeb. The BBC years Russell arrived at the BBC in 1980 and was immediately given a twice-weekly show on BBC2. Known, simply, as RUSSELL HARTY , the series ran on Tuesdays at 8.30pm from the Greenwood Theatre in London and on Thursdays at 8.30pm from the Palace of Glittering Delights in Manchester.

This was the definitive Harty series and it’s from here we get most of his memorable moments. The show was always billed in the Radio Times as “television’s most unpredictable half-hour”, and this was certainly the case as Russ interspersed the chat – including that encounter with Grace Jones – with all sorts of silly bits of business, whether this was watchingThe Great Blondini blow himself up outside the studio or being taught a raunchy dance routine by Hot Gossip. Occasionally there would be a jaunt outside the studio, with entire shows being broadcast from Diana Dors’ swimming pool at home, or from Crufts, or from an oil rig where Russ had a nose around the catering facilities and then watched Bucks Fizz perform The Land Of Make Believe in a force 10 gale. These were the days when television programmes were happy to do outside broadcasts just because they could, regardless of whether there was actually any point to them, so one show came in its entirety from the Goodyear Blimp circling over Rome, where Russ looked out over the Vatican in the company of his special guest… er, Trevor Francis.

(“You know who that gentleman in white is, don’t you, Trevor?” “Yes, it’s Michael Parkinson, isn’t it!”). Another outing saw Russ journey across the Atlantic and co-present THE GOOD DAY SHOW in Boston (“with B.B.C Talk Show Star RUSSELL HARTY”), forecasting the weather for Massachusetts (“And up there it’s going to be forty degrees, dunno if that’s centigrade or farenheit…”). One show was devoted to an interview with Rod Stewart, with Russ introducing the show from the stage just before one of Rod’s concerts, and went to leg it off stage when the curtain came up only for Rod to get him in a headlock and keep him there. Imagine going to see Rod Stewart in concert and the first thing you see being Rod throttling Russell Harty. In the safety of the studio, Russ didn’t seem to mind what his guests did as long as it was amusing, hence Kenny Everett arrived in a cassock and spent most of his interview inhaling helium, much to the distress of fellow guest Penelope Keith (“No more, Kenny, it’s bad for you!”), while Jan Leeming got the chance to croon a song.

Possibly the quintessential Harty clip is this (jump to 6 mins, 5 secs) with Russ consoling Noele Gordon on being kicked off Crossroads and her singing a terrible song. Russ was always happy to muck in, watching on as eighties chat show staple Hercules The Bear ran amok around the audience and lying on a snooker table so Steve Davis could play a shot off his nose. Almost everyone who was anyone in the early eighties appeared, although Russ had a particular fondness for very old women – such as Catherine Bramwell-Booth – who he could fuss over and children who he could encourage to say silly things. He also seemed to have a fondness for very ill people, such as Barry Sheene appearing minutes after a cycle crash and Billy Fury after a million heart attacks. Around this time Russ also joined the board of the newly launched Red Rose Radio in Preston and hosted a show every day at 9am… for the first week, anyway. Into the evenings After three years on BBC2, Russ was promoted to BBC1, and in September 1983 moved to the proto-WOGAN timeslot of Tuesdays and Wednesdays at seven o’clock.

Along the way he lost his first name, with the show called simply HARTY, abandoned Manchester for London full-time and gained a self-drawing pastel title sequence and a lovely theme tune, which Frida out of ABBA certainly liked… (note also Russ fussing over another ancient old woman). This kept much of the old format of wit and whimsy, but was even more frivolous, with Russ promising a show that “lifts you up after the disasters of the news and the depression of the weather forecast”. This meant such items as Dog Of The Week (“If it only has three legs, so much the better”) and regular jaunts to the homes of The Great British Public for a natter, with the punters getting a “I made tea for Russell Harty” teapot for putting him up. There was also a team of regulars including a proto- Mr Motivator called Mr A, cooking from John Tovey and Peter Cook as EL Wisty, although the latter only made a handful of appearances before being replaced by former MR AND MRS hostess Susan Cuff, with Cuff’s Stuff, whatever that was.

As before there was always the chance to get out and about if the chance arose, with Russ hosting a Glamorous Grandmothers contest, while on Valentine’s Day 1984, the gang went to a pub in Liverpool, for features including a yard-of-ale drinking competition. Who says romance is dead? Anyway, the series lasted six months but, given it was lumbered with the dreadful SIXTY MINUTES as a lead-in, it didn’t pull in massive audiences. A second series followed in the autumn of 1984, once a week on Mondays, but with WOGAN on the horizon, there was the worry of a mass whimsy pile-up, so Russ took his leave of teatimes and gave up the chat show after over a decade. Harty goes… into new territory Happily, that wasn’t the end for Russ, who launched HARTY GOES TO…, originally broadcast over an entire weekend on BBC2, with Russ visiting a city and exploring it on Friday, interviewing a celebrity who came from there on Saturday and presenting variety from a local venue on Sunday.

Later instalments were just the one show, normally the former, and were all good fun – like the recent repeat on BBC4 where he played HOLD YOUR PLUMS in Liverpool with Billy Butler – because Russ was crazy about meeting normal people, and later this became his standard TV format, and he could almost always be found on telly having a nose around some town or other. In 1987, Russ expanded his horizons and set off on a Grand Tour of Europe, but sadly he was never to complete this as he contracted hepatitis and, after a long illness and some horrible rumours in the papers, he died in July 1988. A sad loss to British telly, Russell was always very much down to earth, saying he knew his presentation style was something of an acquired taste and he was never going to be a big star, but he hoped some people enjoyed it. TVC certainly did, and for overseeing one of the silliest shows of the eighties, he deserves to be remembered for more than being Grace Jones’ punchbag. If she’d waited another six minutes, she’d have had another little bit!

Countdown to opening of Richard Whiteley Theatre (From The Westmorland Gazette) Countdown to opening of Richard Whiteley Theatre 1 comment GIGGLESWICK'S new school theatre is to be named after Countdown star Richard Whiteley when it is officially opened next week. The 288-seat auditorium at Giggleswick School is already used for drama lessons, productions and assemblies but, on Tuesday, it will stage a community open evening. Built for £900,000 – including a bequest of half a million pounds from the much-loved TV presenter, who died aged 61 in June 2005 – the theatre’s first phase is now complete. Richard was a pupil at Giggleswick School from 1957 to 1962. His English teacher at the time was the late chat show host Russell Harty, who lived in Giggleswick. “The first phase of the project was completed without bidding for any public funding, including from the Arts Council,” said Andrew Beales, foundation director. “However, we were pleased to receive £75,000 from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts towards this project.

The rest of the gifts raised were from parents, Old Giggleswickians, governors and other friends of the school”. Just over 100 seats have already been supported by parents, former pupils and friends, through donations of £25 a month over three years. One such donor is Dame Judi Dench, a patron of the Richard Whiteley Theatre. Patrons also include Kathryn Apanowicz, Jonathan Broadbent, Warwick Brookes, Michael Day, David Fox, Sarah Fox, William Gaunt, John Helliwell, Anthony Millard, Geoffrey Moore, Alan Shallcross, Lord Shuttle-worth, Zoë Wanamaker, Sir Tim Rice, Nicholas Hytner and Carol Vorderman. The school wants to raise a further £225,000 for lighting and technical equipment and £25,000 has already been donated. The Giggleswick School Concert Choir will perform a medley of songs from Les Misérables during the open evening, which will take place between 6pm and 7.30pm. Giggleswick | Community Rail Lancashire Station Giggleswick Giggleswick railway station serves the village of Giggleswick in North Yorkshire.

The station is approx one mile from the town of Settle and is served by trains between Leeds and Morecambe. It is unstaffed and operated by Northern Rail, who provide all passenger train services. The station has recently been branded as a Gateway to the Forest Of Bowland with promotional materials on the station publicising the walking and cycling opportunities. A copy of a poster promoting the walking and cycling routes can be downloaded by clicking here or visit forestofbowland.com/Bentham-Line for more details. Opened by the ‘little’ North Western Railway in 1849, it was originally known as Settle Station, as it was the first station to serve the town. Following the completion of the Settle-Carlisle Railway, the station name was altered to Giggleswick in November 1877 to avoid confusion with the recently opened Settle station a mile to the east. The parish church is named after St Alkelda. The present building dates mostly from the 15th century, but carved stones discovered during the restoration of 1890-2 indicated that a building existed on the site before the Norman Conquest. It is a Grade I listed building.

Giggleswick is famous for its Public School, built in 1897 in the Byzantine style and has quite a list of celebrities who attended or taught at the school. The late Richard Whiteley of Channel 4′s Countdown was a pupil and Russell Harty was an English teacher at the school at the same time. The internationally renowned operatic soprano, Sarah Fox, was born in the village and attended Giggleswick School. Giggleswick is also famous locally amongst rock climbers for an excellent limestone crag, retro-bolted with many sports routes during 2005 & 2006. The crag may be found opposite the golf course (Settle Golf Club) on the B6480, North of Giggleswick.

Address Richard Whiteley | The Independent Richard Whiteley Garish-tied presenter of 'Countdown' since Channel 4's launch in 1982 Monday 27 June 2005 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online John Richard Whiteley, television presenter: born Bradford, Yorkshire 28 December 1943; OBE 2004; married (one son); died Leeds 26 June 2005. With a reputation for loud ties, striped jackets and cringing puns, Richard Whiteley became Channel 4's longest-running presenter after making history as the first face to be seen on its launch day, back in 1982. Indeed, he probably appeared more times on screen than anyone except Carole Hersee, the girl on the BBC test card. As the portly, bumbling host of 3,959 editions of the weekday-afternoon words-and-numbers quiz show Countdown, he was an iconic character beloved by pensioners, housewives, shift workers and students. But it took 13 years for the star himself to realise the extent of his cult status.

After appearing at Leeds University, he recalled: The girl students were fighting to try on my glasses and give me a drink of their beer. Then they'd shriek, "Oh, he's drunk from my glass!" The president of the students' union said, "We've had a few pop groups in here, but I've never seen anything like it!" For Whiteley, it was a case of being catapulted to national fame after years as a regional television reporter and presenter. Until the arrival of Channel 4, the host of Yorkshire Television's news magazine, Calendar, registered nationally only on the gaffes show It'll Be Alright on the Night. He was seen in a 1978 clip from a Calendar spin-off having his finger bitten by a ferret that had been brought to the studio by the author of a book about the half-tame creatures. Whiteley recalled: In mid-sentence, the animal stuck its pearly white teeth straight into the fleshy part of my finger. It was like a dozen needles. Just as the camera panned away, he made the classic remark, "Don't worry.

He's only playing, or he would have bitten through to the bone by now." When it happened, it felt like a road accident in slow motion. But, when I saw it afterwards on video, the whole incident only lasted about 25 seconds. Then, in the summer of 1982, came the idea for another of the Yorkshire news programme's many spin-offs, Calendar Countdown, and Whiteley was asked to front the six-episode series that pitted contestants' wits and mental agility against the clock - a format based on the French television show Des Chiffres et des Lettres ("Digits and Letters"). Yorkshire Television subsequently persuaded Channel 4 to commission it as a four-times-a-week afternoon programme, the first to be broadcast on Britain's fourth terrestrial channel, on 2 November 1982. Countdown took a while to gain a loyal audience, but Whiteley and Carol Vorderman, the programme's resident statistician, eventually became a much loved double-act noted for their banter and friendly put-downs of each other, with Whiteley playing the dunce to Vorderman's genius.

(Vorderman, a 21-year-old Cambridge University engineering graduate when the programme began, was soon presenting other television shows in her own right while continuing on Countdown, which increased to five episodes a week in 1984 - all of them recorded in one day at Yorkshire Television's studios.) Born in Bradford in 1943, Whiteley was brought up in nearby Baildon, and his father, Kenneth, ran the Thomas Whiteley textile mill in Eccleshill. At the age of 13, Richard Whiteley won a scholarship to Giggleswick public school, where he found an inspirational teacher in his English master, Russell Harty, who went on to find fame as a television presenter and chat-show host. Whiteley recalled: He was like a tornado and a marvellous teacher. He made the subject live for me. So much so that he was instrumental in my getting a place at Christ's College, Cambridge. In fact, Whiteley passed seven O levels and three A levels by the time he was 16. He studied English at Cambridge, where he also edited the university newspaper, Varsity.

This led to an appearance on Anglia Television's regional news magazine, where he was advised to apply for a traineeship at ITN. As a result, he joined ITV's national news producer in 1965 as a scriptwriter but left three years later to become a reporter with the newly formed Yorkshire Television. He was soon a regular presenter of its news programme, Calendar, often alongside Austin Mitchell until his co-host's departure in 1977 to become a Labour MP. Whiteley was also the regional company's political editor for a while, and interviewed every British prime minister from Harold Macmillan to John Major. He was staying at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party were holding their annual conference, when an IRA bomb exploded in 1984. Until 1995, he continued to present Calendar as well as Countdown, leading to his nickname, "Twice-Nightly Whiteley".

For Channel 4, Whiteley also hosted two spin-offs, Countdown Masters (1989-91), a daily, five-minute show that was part of The Channel Four Daily's breakfast schedule, and the eight-part Celebrity Countdown (1998), featuring stars such as Jo Brand, Bamber Gascoigne and Des Lynam. Then, he had a short run hosting a chat-show, Richard Whiteley Unbriefed (1999) for the BBC, in which he interviewed guests with no prior knowledge of their identities. (He had already hosted chat-shows in the Yorkshire Television region - Calendar Tuesday and Friday Whiteley.) A proud Yorkshireman, who had a home in Wensleydale and another in Ilkley, near Granada Yorkshire's Leeds studios, he often appeared at regional events - and held the honorary title of Mayor of Wetwang, a small village in East Yorkshire. He said: I'm a man for all the Ridings. I'm a West Riding lad and I'm a Deputy Lieutenant. I went to school in the old West Riding that's now in North Yorkshire, I live in the North Riding and I'm the Mayor of Wetwang - that's the great honour among all honours.

Whiteley's garish ties were matched by an equally colourful love life. His only marriage, to a woman he would identify just as "Candy", an interior designer whom he met in Harrogate, ended in divorce after 18 months. Then, in 1987, he had a son, James, from an on-off relationship with the journalist and broadcaster Lesley Ebbetts. For the last 11 years of his life, Whiteley's partner was the actress Kathryn Apanowicz, who started on screen in the Yorkshire Television networked talent show Junior Showtime and became best known for her role as Den Watts's mistress Mags Czajkowski in EastEnders. She moved in with Whiteley only two years ago, following his admission of an affair with the actress Angela Grant. The presenter's autobiography, Himoff!: the memoirs of a TV matinée idle (as in "him off the telly"), was published in 2000. Anthony Hayward

Question: Russell Harty was an English teacher and Richard Whiteley his pupil at which public school?
Answer: GIGGLESWICK